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When is the last time you have heard of a USA mission trip? The answer might be close to never. We are Ignite To Light and we are planning a USA mission trip this summer and we need your help. Go to our funding site @ igg.me/at/ignitetolight and like us on Facebook @ facebook.com/ignitetolight.

Our aim is to spread the word of Christ's method of healing to a land that eats for entertainment but is dying of preventable disease and is starved for the practical gospel.

The power of the Holy Spirit is awesome to change minds toward giving to His cause. While blogging this I was reminded of how soon throughout the USA hundreds of trips like ours will occuring every summer. Heaven is not experiencing a recession. God is more than capable of providing for us all.

Thanks for taking time to read this post. Remember God's bidding are His enablings!!!

God has given me many opportunities to watch various videos from different sites which focus on all kinds of subjects involving the end-times. There is so much error being promoted in this present society. Many errors are being revealed but vigorously opposed that exist in our current church body. There is a huge push for reformation in the SDA community, but do we really know what this involves? Several statements that our Creator gave to His messenger tell us in truth that the only people on this earth who will be translated when Jesus returns are those who have perfected His character in their lives and overcome all sin. What does this involve? How do we work together with Jesus to accomplish this? As we look at our lives, we must examine our natures, our weaknesses, our worldly desires, and come to the reality that we are worshiping ourselves and the world. God is a small part of our lives - usually during the short time we are in worship during Sabbath morning. God does remind me that there are "... seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." We need to discover true revival and reformation. Please share your thoughts. Thank you.

Let's hope you're not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.

That's because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic.

"We were kind of floored," said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future. "It's unbelievable what we found."

He said that the researchers had intended to test only for antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn't cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.

"We haven't found anything that is an immediate health concern," Nachman added. "But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we're eating. It bewilders me."

Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in my food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don't mean that you should dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious questions about the food we eat and how we should shop.

It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections and makes flesh an appetizing shade of pink. There's no evidence that such low levels of arsenic harm either chickens or the people eating them, but still...

Big Ag doesn't advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to detect them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a poultry byproduct made of feathers.

One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. These antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production because they can breed antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" that harm humans. Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl. The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.

Poultry-growing literature has recommended Benadryl to reduce anxiety among chickens, apparently because stressed chickens have tougher meat and grow more slowly. Tylenol and Prozac presumably serve the same purpose.

Researchers found that most feather-meal samples contained caffeine. It turns out that chickens are sometimes fed coffee pulp and green tea powder to keep them awake so that they can spend more time eating. (Is that why they need the Benadryl, to calm them down?)

The other peer-reviewed study, reported in a journal called Science of the Total Environment, found arsenic in every sample of feather meal tested. Almost 9 in 10 broiler chickens in the United States had been fed arsenic, according to a 2011 industry estimate.

These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they often don't know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the farmer typically doesn't know exactly what is in it. I asked the United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say.

What does all this mean for consumers? The study looked only at feathers, not meat, so we don't know exactly what chemicals reach the plate, or at what levels. The uncertainties are enormous, but I asked Nachman about the food he buys for his own family. "I've been studying food-animal production for some time, and the more I study, the more I'm drawn to organic," he said. "We buy organic."

I'm the same. I used to be skeptical of organic, but the more reporting I do on our food supply, the more I want my own family eating organic — just to be safe.

To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I was growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn't routinely drug animals. If our chickens grew anxious, the reason was perhaps a fox — and we never tried to resolve the problem with Benadryl.

My take is that the business model of industrial agriculture has some stunning accomplishments, such as producing cheap food that saves us money at the grocery store. But we all may pay more in medical costs because of antibiotic-resistant infections.

Frankly, after reading these studies, I'm so depressed about what has happened to farming that I wonder: Could a Prozac-laced chicken nugget help?

I am so glad to be a part of 3angelstube. When you get right down to it, the revolution since 2005 with what's known as 'User Generated Content' is the highest expression of the principles of democracy and the protestant doctrine of the priesthood of every believer there has ever been in world history. If Adventists will embrace this, we will be more readied to receive the Latter Rain than we ever have been. Jesus is coming soon! Though I don't believe the Mayan calendar has anything to do with it, let's take advantage of the increased awareness on the part of the public this fall and meet that awareness with a revelation of God's love and His truth like never before.

Studies have already found Monsanto's toxic herbicide Roundup in groundwater, in streams, and even in the rain and air of US agricultural areas. It's been found in our blood and even crosses the placental barrier to enter our unborn fetuses. So are we surprised that a German university study has now found significant concentrations of Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate in the urine of city dwellers?

Perhaps we should be surprised at the amount: all the samples had concentrations of glyphosate at 5 to 20 times the limit for drinking water.

Roundup is used on railway lines, urban pavements, and roadsides. It's used to dry down grain crops before harvest. But the single greatest use of Roundup is on genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" crops - designed not to die when sprayed with the poison.

Wouldn't it be good if we too were Roundup Ready, so we wouldn't get sick or die due to the virtually omnipresent toxin? After all, studies now link it to birth defects, endocrine disruption, cancer, and abnormal sperm.

As Roundup is a best-selling product worldwide and there are massive profits hanging on its continued use, the new testing initiative has fallen prey to the usual attempts at disinformation, distortion, and intimidation. Note the excerpt from the story: "The address of the university labs, which did the research, the data and the evaluation of the research method is known to the editors. Because of significant pressure by agrochemical representatives and the fear that the work of the lab could be influenced, the complete analytical data will only be published in the course of this year."

Our children have learned to regard Christmas as a day of rejoicing, and we should find it a difficult matter to pass over this holiday without some attention. It may be made to serve a good purpose. The youth should not be left to find their own amusement in vanity and pleasure-seeking. If parents will make the necessary effort, the minds of the children may be directed to God, to his cause, and to the salvation of souls. Their desire to make gifts may be turned into channels of good to their fellow-men, to sustaining the work which Christ came to do. {RH, December 15, 1885 par. 4}

I see no objection to placing even in our churches a Christmas or New Year tree bearing fruit in gifts and offerings for the cause of God. We may thus take advantage of the occasion to turn the customary gifts of the season into the right channel. And such a holiday celebration is a useful lesson to our children, teaching them to bestow their gifts in a manner to honor their Redeemer. {ST, January 4, 1883 par. 7}

While urging upon all the duty of first bringing their offerings to God, I would not wholly condemn the practice of making Christmas and New Year's gifts to our friends. It is right to bestow upon one another tokens of love and remembrance if we do not in this forget God, our best Friend. We should make our gifts such as will prove a real benefit to the receiver. I would recommend such books as will be an aid in understanding the Word of God, or that will increase our love for its precepts. --RH, Dec. 26, 1882. {PM 345.4}

“I have for some reason felt anxious for you. I expected to find a letter from you here at Enosburg but was disappointed. I sent you a Christmas present. Let me hear from you.” {3MR 128.3}

Have you ever thought about what the spiritual meaning behind our modern age is? Consider how we think we can control the world around us through technology much better than our ancestors ever did. Consider also the advances in healing and our ability to travel and communicate over vast distances. Put that together with the hopes and dreams modern people have for space travel and that (to me at least) is evidence modern humanity thinks they have taken back for themselves all that God took away from Adam and Eve on the day they sinned. The way my wife put it to me when we were discussing this topic once was that Satan's temptation with today's modern age is "Don't you want to stay? Don't you want to think you can really make it on your own without God?"

Thoughts like this make me even more appreciative of the value of the truths of the Bible within Adventism. We are not ultra-Conservative and so against the modern age as to make ourselves irrelevant in people's eyes. By God's grace He is using us to show the world how relevant the truth as it is in Jesus still is despite all the changes in the last 150 years.

Some people who believe in evolution and reject God in favour of the modern worldview claim there's no need for spirituality. Well I noticed a parallel between the first six Star Trek movies and Bible truth that I like to share with people like that.

In Star Trek the Motion Picture we have a character looking for its creator.
Star Trek 2 the Wrath of Khan deals with the subject of creation and ends with Spock (who is half human, and half from a place where people are able to control themselves better) dying to save the rest of the crew.
Spock rises from the dead in Star Trek 3.
Star Trek 4 has the Enterprise crew coming back to earth in our time.
Star Trek 5 has them going to heaven.
And Star Trek 6 opens the door to a brave new world of adventures after we make total peace with our enemies.

That is the exact thought structure and in the exact order one needs to comprehend in order to become a born again, Adventist Christian. Although when I share this thought with non-Christians who are into science fiction I leave out the word 'Adventist', it always makes them think deeply.